Where Were You?
by Ringbearingreasergal
Summary: Song fic: "You Found Me" by the Fray. Cloud has a nightmare that leads him to Amistad Avenue in the middle of the night and he has a chance encounter with a magnificent man who calls himself 'God'.


**Hey everybody, this is another Ring-shot I've created, except for this one's gonna be a SERIES!!! Well, hopefully anyway. This is a series of oneshots I'm going to be updating every once in awhile based on nightmares or dreams that different characters have and how it affects them in real life. They're going to be songfics to pretty popular lyrics, so enjoy! This first one is based on Cloud.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Cloud, God, or the lyrics to 'You Found Me' by The Fray. All I own is the idea to mash them up.**

Chapter One: Where Were You?

Cloud would swear on any day of the week that his life was utterly meaningless. He was twenty-three years old, strong, and smart, and he had never felt so purposeless. He worked each day, longer than a twenty-three-year-old young man should, come home to Tifa Lockheart and little Marlene Wallace, sit in his room going over receipts, ignoring his phone, existing. Brooding.

"How was your day, Cloud?" Tifa asked him on April 22nd after he had come home from work. Tifa was behind the bar, wiping down counters, while six-year-old Marlene did her homework on a restaurant table.

"Fine," he said, walking past her without making eye contact. He headed straight for his room again. His day had been terrible. He had mixed up two orders and had traveled much farther than he ended up having to, because of it. Then he'd had to pay a boat load of cash to fill up his bike again . . . _life_, Cloud thought, _was not supposed to be like this_. He groaned and fell on his bed, scrubbing his eyes. He was so _tired_. And there was so much to think about and so much to fix . . . God. He needed help. He gave in to sleep, _only for a few hours_, he told himself, just enough to get rid of the persistent bags around his eyes. He'd get up later on and get to work on the next day's orders.

**XxXxXx**

_When Cloud looked up he was in the attic of Seventh Heaven. It was a dark, rotting, musky place full of moldy old cardboard boxes and limp packaging supplies. The roof was high and there was one squared window, glazed with dust and cobwebs. Cloud stood on the faded padding of brown carpet. The ceiling beams creaked and the floor boards groaned with each new press of weight. This attic was dark and gloomy and unspectacular and the dark stillness of it made it a little eerie. _

_Cloud looked at the ground, having no idea why he was really in the attic. He turned for the door to leave when slow tragedy thudded into him: there was no door. He pounded his fists on the wall, but the rotting wood was now as hard as steel. He was trapped. A small scuttling sound inched across the floor behind him, growing more and more numerous. Cloud turned around to face the room once more and nearly choked from his own pure, quaking terror._

_Cloud Strife's body dangled limply from a beam in the center of the attic, hung by a rope. His face was downcast; eyes were shut, and his mouth was white. Rust-colored blood dripped in thick globules to the floor from his nose where thick, black rats lapped it up eagerly. The scuttling sound revealed its origination as thousands of tiny, black, repulsive-smelling beetles stampeded their way through the floor—infesting the dreary attic. Cloud, the alive Cloud, jumped away as the bugs swarmed over his dead body—beginning to eat away his flesh with little crunches and slurps._

_"Stop," Cloud whimpered, "stop, please," he told the things. They cackled maliciously as they continued to eat._

_"This is future, Food," they spat at him in a wispy unison. "Does the dust praise you and do the worms declare your truth now?" _

_"Get away," Cloud pleaded. "Get away." He shielded himself from the sight with his hands._

_"You can't get away from us! There's only one place in the world we wouldn't go now."_

_"Where?" Cloud whispered. The bugs blinked at him._

_"Amistad." They replied with their scuttling clicks. "Go. Now. While you still can." They turned to him, clicking and whirring their beady antennas. Then it seemed that they grinned a terrible, black grin. They left their shredded skeleton . . . and they crawled to him now. Thousands upon thousands of tiny beady legs and wandering antennas descended on him. Horror filled Cloud and when he opened his mouth to screech in terror, they filled his mouth, choking him, consuming him. From the inside out._

**XxXxXx**

Cloud bolted up in bed, panting. The immediate darkness was terrible and his large, shaking hand grabbed at the light switch, flicking it on and releasing a familiar, dim yellow light over his bedroom. Cloud let out a breath, rubbing a hand against his cool, wet forehead and brushing back his hair before leaning back against his headboard and staring at the wall ahead of him, trying to sort through reality and nightmares.

What a dream.

He shivered involuntarily, pulling his blankets around him as he recalled the scuttling of the tiny bugs as they fed on his dangling, silhouetted flesh. The despondency that pressed him when he discovered there was no leaving the attic. How lonely and cold and black he had looked. Hair and skin white. Blood collecting beneath him. Rope creaking under his weight. Like a ghost.

Cloud's Head told him he was being a child. Getting so worked up over a dream. But it had _been_. _So. Real._ He pushed both Head and Paranoia away and threw off his blankets. He stood up, pulled on a pair of black leather pants and a jacket over his white t-shirt, and nudged his sock-feet into a pair of boots. He needed to get out of Seventh Heaven. Be alone—really alone. He needed to get out from under the attic.

He grabbed his keys from the nightstand and slipped him into his pocket. He stole out the door—snuck past Tifa's and Marlene's room, and softly made his way down the stairs. The scene was perfectly monochromatic. White skin and pale hair swallowed and blending in dark leather and shadowed walls. He punched in the four-digit security code and it blipped softly—the door opened, allowing a waft of chilled air to ruffle through his hair and clothes. The moon was large and round and full tonight, but there were no stars in the pitch sky to be seen.

Cloud shut the door and took no time to ponder the stillness of the night while he strode to his bike like a man on a mission, and swung himself onto it. His bike started with a hum and although he caught a glimpse of Tifa's weary face blinking through her window, his mind wasn't on her worry. It was on the fact that he couldn't shake the image of his lifeless body, gray and dead, hanging in the attic. In the dream, he had killed himself. What did it mean, what did it mean, what did it mean.

He forced his mind from it as he drove and concentrated, instead, on the streets of Edge, he had memorized better than the back of his hand. Time and conflict had weathered the city, he noticed as he cruised westward, grimly taking in the crumbling buildings and the sagging rooftops. All was silent. No birds or crickets or other nightly noises. No other cars or ambulances, just the occasional whisper of wind riffling through his hair as he sped up. A couple of years ago, this city would have been magnificent with color. It would have sparkled with diversity and adventure.

But the vibrance of Cloud's world had died a bit back. Vibrance's name was Zach. Zach had been the last of the sparkle . . . Cloud winced as flashbacks of unforgettable images surged through Cloud's head. Ebony hair, cream skin, ruby-blood streaked sacrificially and brilliantly across purest-of-pure liquid blue eyes. Zach, Zach Fair, had taught Cloud what color really was and what it meant to the world. After that day, the Golden West had phased to silver, which I time, faded to gray, and was now in the process of decaying to black. It had been won. Or lost. Cloud hardened and didn't let himself dare think on . . . on her.

Cloud reached a cross road in his wanderings. He was on 1st Street now, and to his left was Calypso Boulevard while to his right was . . . Amistad Avenue. The tiny wispy, evil voice echoed in his head. _"Only one place in the world we wouldn't go now . . . Amistad. Go now, while you still can."_ He stopped his bike, uncomfortable at the realization, and pondered over the stop sign. He hadn't particularly _meant_ to wind up here. Yes, he knew the streets, but he'd been letting his muscles do the driving while his mind had wandered aimlessly. He didn't like this. He didn't like the fact that he had the urge to pull onto Amistad, just to be sure. He didn't like the fact that he knew that he was going to ignore his Head, and go with his gut instinct.

He veered into Amistad and it changed his life.

Cloud parallel-parked his bike, switched it off, and breathed. His hands were clammy and he stuffed them into his pockets. He looked around. No one. Nothing. He climbed off his bike and stood, unsure of what to do next.

"There you are, Son!" I've been waiting." A hand rested on Cloud's shoulder, causing him to jump. The figure behind him chuckled at his surprise and as Cloud turned, he came face to face with a strange, vaguely familiar face.

"I'm sorry," Cloud said softly, taken aback. "Do I know you?"

The man chuckled again, a deep gentle chuckle that shook and warmed the Earth. "Not yet, Cloud Strife, but I know you." The man was tall and strong and timeless. He was taller than Cloud, height added, perhaps, by the forest green Fedora resting on his head. His face was the face of a wise man's—impossibly old-looking, glowing with knowledge and years, and untouched by wrinkles, except around his eyes. When Cloud locked eyes with the man, he was staggered by the forceful gentleness and compassion in his liquid brown doe-eyes and by the small, tender coyness around his lips. He had no beard or moustache. His hair was long and gray, tied neatly back with a yellow ribbon so it hung straight down his back. He wore brown, cracked men's shoes, long, lean dress pants, a white dress shirt, and a beige trench coat over it all. A dark green scarf was slung around his neck—to match the Fedora, presumably—and to top it all off, he wore lemon-yellow gloves clean and perfect over his hands. He could have been 30 years old or 60 years old. But something in those eyes made him seem much, much older.

"Well, um . . . oh. Have we met before? I'm sorry—I can't quite remember your name . . ." Cloud was clumsy now, trying to recover himself and stumbling over his words. The man smiled mischievously, like he'd heard a good joke, and he stood straight on the dark sidewalk.

"There's a lot of things they call me, Cloud. Too many to get through in one setting. You could call me Jehovah—that's a pretty popular one—but it seems a bit too formal for the moment. Hmm . . . yet Ada's a little too personal . . . oh—for simplicity's sake, just call me God." He looked back up at Cloud, pleased and expectant. Cloud snorted.

"Excuse me?" He asked doubtfully.

"God . . . you know, creator of this whole . . . place." The man who called himself God gestured to Midgar. Cloud sized the man up again, feeling sorry that he had misjudged the man's appearance of intelligence and wisdom.

"You're _not_ God," he said flatly. The man raised a single, gray eyebrow.

"Oh? And how would _you_ know?"

"Because . . . God doesn't exist." Cloud decided. The man looked down at himself.

"News to me. I feel great. Why don't you think I exist?"

"I'm an atheist."

"_No_," the man cried in mock surprise. Cloud shrugged.

"Sure I am."

"Ha!" The man lightly pointed at him with a silk yellow finger. "You're not an atheist, you're an agnostic. You're not really sure if there's a God or not in this world." There was a twinkle in his eye as he spoke. He was right. Cloud had never fully decided if there was a God or not.

"How'd you know that?" He asked uncomfortably.

"I know everything about you and the rest of the world."

"That's impossible."

"Yeah?" The man closed his eyes for a minute and leaned against a wall stained with graffiti before speaking. "You were born on January 26th in Nibelhelm, your hometown. At least it was your hometown until you were 14 when you applied and successfully entered the SOLDIER ShinRa program. After a couple of accidents you quit SOLDIER and became a delivery boy for your own business where you now live with friends Tifa Lockheart and Marlene Wallace." He finished humbly.

Cloud gaped, before digging for his cell phone. "Are you some kind of stalker or something? I need to call ShinRa and tell them to secure my history file . . ."

"The real reason why you quit SOLDIER was because you couldn't stand working for the company that indirectly killed your best friend, Zach, and your true love, Aeris. You blame yourself for Aeris's death, you've never gotten over her, and because of it you practically live in her old church (something I find a little ironic for an agnostic/atheist), cutting yourself off from your old friends and ultimately hurting Tifa, who's sworn to herself that she'd be with you through everything, no matter how painful it was."

Cloud took a few steps back, stammering. "You, you talked to my friends. They know all that. You must've met Tifa somewhere or—or Barret or some-somebody." The man's eyes bored deeply into his.

"Okay, Cloud, okay. Let's see . . . aha. Your favorite food as a kid was fried mangos. Your daydreams consist of either reuniting with Zach and Aeris, or reripping Sephiroth limb from limb. You put customers that live far away in top priority, so that you can get farther away from Midgar and sometimes you consider never returning to Seventh Heaven and leaving the bar and your business forever. You can't stand Tifa for insisting on trying to take Aeris's place, yet you know you're not strong enough to set her straight once and for all. You distance yourself from little Marlene because she looks way too much like Aeris, you think Reno and Yuffie would make adorable babies, your greatest physical fear is of insects, and your greatest emotional fear is of completely losing hope. You're sure that one day you'll end up killing yourself. You admire Vincent Valentine for his control, and in the shower you sometimes pretend you're John Wayne. Your favorite celebrity has secretly been Dolly Parton ever since you were six and you swear that every year she gets prettier and prettier. You determined a little bit ago that Zach Fair taught you what color really was and you're here right now because of a nightmare you had in which bugs feeding on your flesh told you they avoided this very spot."

There was a stunned silence that followed; Cloud found himself with nothing to say, but a realization of betrayed shock flashed across his eyes. Cloud swallowed hard. This couldn't be real. It was all true. _How?_

"So, you're really God, then," he managed. The gray-haired man nodded, spotless green Fedora dipping momentarily over his eyes. "A loving God who watches everything from some pearly golden city in the sky," he looked around the bleak and empty city. "Watching Midgar crumble." His breathing grew quicker. "Letting things like ShinRa take over and ruin everything . . . No. No, no loving God would do that. Unless you take some sort of vacation or something every few hundred years" Cloud mumbled, turning his head away. God's eyes were serious and sad. _He's not God!_ His Head tried to tell him. But after hearing what the man had said, Cloud didn't have the energy to argue.

"I don't vacation," God said gently. Cloud laughed despondently, shaking his head and running a hand through his feathery yellow hair.

"Well then where've ya been, man?" He asked weakly, trying to smile and failing. "We could've used your help the last couple of years." God's eyes shone brightly in the moonlight with the pain at hearing this hurt young man's voice and heart expose so vulnerably to him.

"Ask anything," he whispered.

Cloud's mind jumbled to process the concept that The God had just offered him a personal question, free of charge. The quicker he reflected on the last five years; the tragedies and deaths and destruction he'd witnessed. From Vincent's Lucrecia to Zach dying . . . everyone precious to him . . . hurt. And now standing before him the one man who _could have_ prevented it all. Cloud's face heated and his hands became fists and his eyes tightened. He advanced toward God, ready for his question.

"Where _were_ you?!" He yelled, breathing erratically. "Where were you when everything was falling apart?! When Sephiroth killed Aeris and when Zach lay dying in front of me and there was _nothing_ I could do? Didn't you know how much I needed someone? Anyone? Didn't you hear me? You might be God, but you're not omnipotent. You weren't around—no one was. And I have never _been_ so alone! . . ." His voice shook and rang with pain and confusion. "She—she was the only one who knew. Who I was, and wasn't; who I wanted to be. Losing her, I lost everything. In the end, does everyone end up alone?! You know it all—you know those nights I spent waiting by the telephone, for someone to call and let me know I wasn't the only one who'd really lost everything. It never came. The call never came, God. And when I decided that it never would and I called to you for those years and years—where were you? _Where were you_?"

"I was there," God said softly, tears gleaming in his timeless eyes. "You just . . . didn't recognize me."

Cloud let out a ragged laugh. "How in the world was I to know that you'd be hanging around in a top hat and trench coat? Huh? How long have you been here on Amistad? Why didn't you come find me? Why'd you have to _wait? _You've got some kind of nerve showing up and expecting everything to be good between us." He paused a minute before blurting out, "I've been on the verge of killing myself for the past two years, God. I don't get it—where were you then? Don't you think you're just a little late? Where _were_ you?" He pleaded persistently, his blue eyes lost and hurting.

The man took a deep breath. "Your first attempt—in your room with your gun. I was Marlene knocking on your door asking if you'd take her to see the latest Disney movie."

Cloud shook his head and turned away, pacing. He wasn't hearing this. He _wasn't_ hearing this.

"Time number two: in your car with the pills. I was the Dolly Parton song on the radio crooning how much she didn't want you to go."

Cloud rubbed his eyes and shuddered, his head in his hands.

"And your third attempt—alone in the house with just enough rope. I was Reno calling to invite you to his friend's bachelor party," he admitted.

"That was you?" Cloud asked wearily, with disbelief in his eyes.

"I was getting pretty desperate," God said, nodding solemnly. They both dissolved into an emotional laughter that ended shortly with Cloud in tears.

"You must want me around pretty badly then. I got drunker than anything at that party." God nodded again, love in his eyes. "Why? Why me? If the only time you're gonna bother with me is when I'm ready to off myself, what would you possibly want with me? I'm a train wreck who dresses in black leather and used to kill people for a living. Now I don't even have that. I'm worthless, God."

"You saved the world. Twice."

"Look at me!" Cloud screamed, begging. "I. Don't. _CARE! _I've never been proud of my _accomplishments!_ I've never been _fulfilled_! Even killing Sephiroth didn't change anything! I'm _empty _and I'm _angry_ and I'm _tired_ and . . . all I want . . . is for it to stop." With those words, Cloud was crushed. He was done. Defeated. Broken. Exposed. Every secret, every grudge, every fear of his had been dissected and defined in front of the most powerful being in the universe and now there was no use hiding his anguish. Cloud's face broke and he slid to the ground, covering his face in his hands, unable to stop himself from crying.

Raw wind nipped at his shoulders and he shivered, feeling every ounce of strength he had left dissolve and crumble. He was lost, insecure, alone, lying on the ground, and was losing. All. Hope.

But then . . . then there were two strong arms around him—shielding him from the wind—cradling him against the darkness. A man in a Fedora knelt down beside the fallen young man and began to rock him steadily. All at once, Cloud was a child again—naïve and frightened—who needed nothing more than warm arms of a father to protect him from the world and hands of lemon-yellow to wipe away his tears.

"I'm s-scared," Cloud whimpered, his eyes shut.

"I'll protect you," God replied in the deep, gentle voice.

"And I-I'm lonely," Cloud cringed, holding on.

"I'll be your friend," God hushed.

"I'm lost and I don't know what to do," he sniffled.

"I've found you and I'll show you my plan for you. I love you more than anything I've ever created in this entire world and I will _never_ abandon you."

The dawn broke into a brilliant sunrise of oranges and crimsons and magentas over the broken city of Edge. And as the sun appeared, Cloud's exhaustion took over and he drifted to sleep in the arms of God on the corner of 1st and Amistad. And though no citizen of Midgar would see it, the man in the trench coat carried Cloud effortlessly back to Seventh Heaven.

**XxXxXx**

Cloud awoke with a deep, deep peace settling over him. He was fully dressed, tucked carefully into his small bed in his room at Seventh Heaven. Golden sunlight streamed brightly in through his window, nudging his eyes open. He slid out of bed, attempting to make sense of the hazed memories of the night before. He walked into his bathroom, and took a look in the mirror. His eyes were red and swollen, like he'd been crying. He walked back to his room. He froze. He was the physical being inside his room, but there was definitely someone else there. And the knowledge brought an indescribable calm and security to Cloud's heart.

"Thank you," he said. "Thank you so much for everything, thank you." He smiled a small, trusting smile at the sunshine and opened his door to see Marlene skipping down stairs. He was slightly taken aback. "Hey, Marlie, where'd you get that hat?" He asked. Marlene took off the satin, forest-green Fedora from the top of her soft dark hair, and shot him a joy-lit smile that only a happy six-year-old can manage.

"I found it on the counter this morning. There was a note that said it was for you. Tifa said it'd be alright if I wore it for a little bit. Do you know who gave it to you, Cloud?" She extended her small hands, offering him the hat. Cloud took it, lightly touching the silky brim. He brought it to his face. It smelled like mountains.

"Yes," he said slowly, " but not well. I'm going to, though. I know I'm going to because it was the One who found me."

**XxXxXx**

_I found God on the corner of 1st and Amistad  
Where the West was all but won  
All alone, smoking his last cigarette  
I said, "Where've you been?" He said, "Ask anything."_

_Where were you, when everything was falling apart.  
All my days were spent by the telephone that never rang  
And all I needed was a call that never came  
To the corner of 1st and Amistad_

_Lost and insecure, you found me, you found me  
Lying on the floor, surrounded, surrounded  
Why'd you have to wait? Where were you? Where were you?  
Just a little late, you found me, you found me._

_But in the end everyone ends up alone  
Losing her, the only one who's ever known  
Who I am, who I'm not and who I wanna to be  
No way to know how long she will be next to me_

_The early morning, the city breaks  
And I've been calling for years and years and years  
And you never left me no messages  
You never sent me no letters  
You got some kind of nerve taking all I want_

_Lost and insecure, you found me, you found me  
Lying on the floor, Where were you? Where were you?  
Why'd you have to wait, to find me? To find me..._

**XxXxXx**

**Please review!**


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